Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch

Welcome toAfrica Great Lakes Democracy Watch Blog.Our objective is to promote the institutions of democracy,social justice,Human Rights,Peace, Freedom ofExpression, and Respect to humanity in Rwanda,Uganda,DR Congo, Burundi,Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya,Ethiopia, and Somalia. We strongly believe that Africa will develop if only our presidents stop being rulers of men and become leaders of citizens. We support Breaking the Silence Campaign for DR Congo since we believe the democracy in Rwanda means peace inDRC. Follow this link to learn more about the origin of the war in both Rwanda and DR Congo:http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library

Sunday, November 28, 2010

By Dana Godstein in The Daily BeastPaul Kagame helped rebuild after genocide, but he has also brutally repressed political opposition in his country. Dana Goldstein on why Clinton is still protecting the Rwandan president.While the Rwandan president is celebrated for rebuilding his country after its horrific genocide, over the past year he has brutally suppressed his political opposition, arresting presidential rivals and censoring journalists. This month, a leaked U.N. report accused Kagame’s militias of murdering and raping thousands of members of the Hutu ethnic group who fled over the border to Congo in the late 1990s.
Yet here at the Clinton Global Initiative, Kagame has one very powerful defender: Bill Clinton himself. At last year’s CGI conference, Clinton presented Kagame with a Global Citizen Award. At this year's event, he is promoting Rwanda's success in expanding rural health care and aid to family farmers.Paul Kagame & Bill Clinton (AP Photo 2)Kagame has denied the accusations against him. When I asked Clinton Monday evening whether the world community should hold Kagame accountable for the violence and political suppression, he equivocated.
“The U.N. said what it did about what happened after the [Rwandan] genocide, in Congo. … Kagame strongly disputes it,” Clinton said. “Right now I’m not going to pre-judge him because there’s this huge debate about what happened in the Congo and why, and I don’t know.”
Yet the U.N. evidence against Kagame is nothing new. Activists have long accused Rwanda of ethnic and sexual violence in Congo—both in the Rwandan government’s pursuit of its own rebel groups and in Rwandan militias’ competition to access and control Congo’s lucrative mineral deposits.

“We lost our moral authority in 1994 when the genocide happened, and we allowed Paul Kagame to become the authority in the region and go into Congo.”

“It is not a matter of pre-judging,” Human Rights Watch senior Rwanda researcher Carina Tertsakian told The Daily Beast in response to Clinton’s statement. “The facts are well-established. … There is no doubt that Rwandan troops, together with their Congolese allies, committed large-scale massacres and other grave human-rights violations against Rwandan and Congolese civilians. The evidence is there for all to see. What more does Clinton need?”
In part, Clinton’s defense of Kagame is unsurprising. The former president says he deeply regrets that his administration was slow to act during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which 10 percent of Kagame’s ethnic group, the Tutsi, were murdered—mostly by machete.
Since then, Kagame has achieved impressive results modernizing Rwandan society. He has contributed troops to U.N. peacekeeping missions, notably in Sudan, and has worked effectively with international aid groups, including the Clinton Foundation, to build a more efficient bureaucracy, particularly around public health and agriculture.
That record leaves some diplomats and humanitarians hesitant to criticize Kagame. At CGI, Rwanda is being portrayed as a model for international aid, not as a nation struggling with basic democracy and human rights. "It's the best-run nation in Africa," Clinton told me.
But overwhelming evidence emerged this year that Rwanda’s presidential election was rigged, with the Kagame regime using a law against genocide-denial to sully the reputations of government critics and prevent opposition leaders from getting on the ballot. Several dissidents even turned up dead.
In our interview Monday, Clinton downplayed the political suppression and violence, citing Kagame’s popularity among the Rwandan public. “I’ve been to Rwanda a lot. … And I’ve been out where most people don’t go. And my opinion is there is nothing that could have kept him from getting a breathtaking majority because the lives of the Rwandans have changed,” Clinton said. “It doesn’t mean it’s justifiable to muscle your opponents or anything else. It just means the next step of their democracy is going to be making more space for dissent and having the confidence that everything you’ve done is not going to be derailed if you do it.”
Clinton is undoubtedly influenced by the long-running policies of the U.S. State and Defense Departments toward Rwanda. While nations such as Sweden and the Netherlands have withheld foreign aid from the Kagame regime because of its support for armed rebel groups active inside Congo, Rwanda receives tens of millions of dollars annually from the U.S., including money for military training and weapons.

Party leaders have since registered their concern and initiated a move to hunt for a suitable first lady.

Reports from the diamond rich southern African country indicate that during a party gathering on November 15 one brave former cabinet minister, Kebatlamang Morake asked Khama when he would marry.

Giving an impression that the whole scene was stage managed, Khama responded by saying “For your information, I want a woman who is tall, slim and good looking" reports say.

"You are guilty of ridiculing the President. The best that you should do is to go all out and look for the woman that you prefer for me as I hardly have time to hunt for a woman who will become my wife" Khama is quoted saying.

Vice President, Mompati Merafhe later told the gathering that his several attempts to remind Khama to marry hit a brick wall.

"I don’t think there is anything else that I can do for now because I did my very best during our days at the barracks to remind my boss to marry without success,"

Khama was a few years ago previously engaged to a Gaborone dentist, Dr Nomsa Mbere. Arrangements had been made for their marriage with the exception of a wedding date. But, all came to an abrupt end when Khama’s mother, Lady Ruth Khama died.

A persistent unanswered question has been on the lips of everyone who has been observing conflicts and politics in different parts of the world. What are the criteria the Department for International Development (DfID) follows to distribute British taxpayers’ money as aid to different countries? Unless you assume there are hidden pointers that ordinary Westerners aren’t allow to know, no one would understand for example how Rwanda led by Paul Kagame could be one of the favourite beneficiaries, knowing that its record of human rights abuse is unprecedented.
Let’s forget the UN/ Gersony report of October 1994 or the Garreton report of 1997 which, though covered up and therefore not followed up, documented killing of thousands of Hutu population the first in Rwanda and the second in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But the UN report published on October 1st, thanks to its leaking by the newspaper Le Monde a month earlier, accuses openly the Rwandan Patriotic Army and its AFDL partner in war of having committed acts of genocide in DRC. Since October 14th, 2010, the President of Rwanda has imprisoned Ms Victoire Ingabire, leader of FDU-Inkingi, an important opposition personality on Rwandan ring-fenced political space, and this occurring without any clear condemnation from the international community.
On the Mo Ibrahim Index Rwanda scores 47.2% and stands at no. 31 out 53 African countries. For a reminder, this index measures annually four parameters across the continent. These are safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity, human development. Overall the country has moved backwards by 2.2% from previous period of 2007/8. There has as well been a significant decrease in safety and rule of law by 8.4%, while in terms of sustainable economic opportunity, a 2.2% increase had been registered.
In its press freedom index, Reporters without Borders indicates that Rwanda was ranked 157th out of 175 countries in the 2009 listing. The country was featured among the four lowest African scorers of the record. Eritrea, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea were the only countries below Rwanda in the ranking. Transparency International has on the other hand referred to Rwanda as the least corrupt country in East Africa. But it is arguable because, according to the country’s critic, there may not be official corruption following the fact that Rwanda is a police state. As Transparency itself points it out, ‘it was unable to produce a comparison of how Rwanda’s institutions fared because reports of bribery were so low – and no Rwandan organization was included in the regional comparison.’ For example, the South African newspaper Sunday Times uncovered in February 2010 the case of two luxury jets worth around one hundred millions of US $ belonging to the Rwandan president, and this may only be the tip of the iceberg.
At a time of drastic measures that the British government is currently taking to deal with its massive deficit, very few departments have seen their budgets increased. International development is among the handful winners. Apparently the department budget is ring-fenced, but even there fundamental changes may be planned in its spending. Anne McElvoy, writing in The Evening Standard, seems to be sceptical about supposed changes. ‘Ring-fencing of spending of international development, (which) means that less rigour will be applied there than in other areas – and in a department whose inefficiencies are legendary in Whitehall,’ she argues.
It has been announced that aid budget will mainly focus on ‘fragile states’ such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen and other countries deemed important for Britain’s national security, with less for prosperous nations such as India and China. The aim is seemingly to tackle underlying problems, such as poor education, governance and healthcare, which are exploited by militants seeking recruits for terrorism acts. However, such prioritisation supposes that hopefully, there won’t be any recruit from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi or Democratic Republic of Congo who will come to London to blow himself with other members of the public, since some of these countries could be as well called fragile states, when considered the total absence of political space for dissent voices.Tim Whewell’s film, ‘What is the true price of Rwanda’s recovery’, which was shown on Newsnight in March 2010 on BBC Two, explained that whoever between Labour and Tories British political parties would’ve won the general elections, support to Paul Kagame’s regime would’ve remained. As for Britain’s role in supporting Rwanda, Mr. Cannon, British ambassador in Kigali, says that: ‘Although there are aspects of the country’s human rights that are not perfect – certainly we wouldn’t be here or doing what we’re doing if we didn’t think there was a commitment on the part of the government to the values we share.’ He points in particular to a shared commitment to pro-poor policies – thanks in part to British aid, the proportion of poor Rwandans fell from 70% of the population to 57% between 1994 and 2006. He however forgets to mention that in 1990, before the guerrilla war led by Paul Kagame, that proportion of poor Rwandans was according PNUD only 47%.
The particular treatment of Rwanda responds to a number of specific interests the country represents or defends for Britain in the Great Lakes region. French was replaced by English as national language, without any public consultation, despite the consequences of such decision on thousands of Rwandan public servants who had been educated in French for several generations. The Rwandan president was rewarded admission of his country to the Commonwealth though Rwanda and countries of the ex-British empire didn’t share any common heritage. Such admission maybe could’ve been tolerable at least if Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and other human rights organisations hadn’t vigorously denounced the level of human rights abuse by the Rwandan president.
But this was without considering current cuts that the coalition government Lib. Dem/ Conservatives would impose to the British nation or the exposure to compelling evidence of Paul Kagame’s crimes to the public which had turned a blind eye on his excesses because of his country’s recent history. Despite an increasing and unprecedented record of abuses of human rights particularly against Rwandan politicians from the opposition, Kigali doesn’t look worried to loose the support of Britain, this even after the publication of the UN report on crimes committed in DRC. The fact of pointing an accusatory finger to Paul Kagame seems to have rather radicalised his attitude towards his opponent politicians: Victoire Ingabire from the FDU-Inkingi and Me Bernard Ntaganda from Socialist Party Imberakuri are paying with tortures and imprisonment for the frustration of the Rwandan president. But this may not apply for Andre Rwisereka, vice-president of the Green Democratic Party of Rwanda who was apparently assassinated by the regime’s handlers in July 2010 for political reasons. On this particular case, Kigali has refused an independent inquiry into the death of this politician, but instead imprisoned probably innocent people to calm pressing calls for justice.
At the Conservative conference held a few months ago, the issue of human rights in Rwanda was apparently raised but couldn’t find any ear ready to listen to the point of concern. Those who tried to highlight the question found it played down because Rwanda is seen as a flagship for Britain in the matters of aid to development. But what the whole picture of support to Paul Kagame doesn’t tell is how that provided financial support enables Rwandan authorities to get a hand on Eastern Congo mineral resources with the complicity of private companies based in Western countries, or to oppress and legally discriminate among its citizens, and spread internationally its propaganda of being a success story in the midst of an African continent marred with conflicts and all sorts of negative clichés. Another hidden reality was uncovered by UN experts on the consequence of aid in the Great Lakes region. They found that, for example in the case of Uganda, ‘(it) gave the Government room to spend more on security matters while other sectors, such as education, health and governance, are being taken care of by the bilateral and multilateral aid,’ asserts the UN report of 2001 on ‘Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’
In the light of current cuts, would British taxpayers continue to see their money which would have helped them or else to deal with ongoing tough times be spent as aid to development of dictatorial and oppressive governments such Rwanda, without asking pertinent questions to their leaders? I don’t think they would knowingly. As international aid budget is scheduled to increase during the current parliament, British public should be more attuned to asking from their ministers a minimum of criteria of human rights and press freedom, and democratic credentials, beneficiaries of British aid should comply with rigorously.

Mr Sylvain Sibomana, the Secretary General of the yet-to-be registered political party FDU Inkingi whose chairperson is in prison issued a press release this Friday 19th November 2010. In his word, Sylvain stated that more than ever before Ms. Victoire INGABIRE, who has now spent her 37th Day in maximum Prison, is now the “source of courage and strength” to her party members and to many Rwandans.

Today FDU INKINGI party members visited party Chair Ms. Victoire INGABIRE in Kigali maximum prison. She remains a symbol of a national struggle, a freedom icon and a democracy martyr. She encouraged the visiting colleagues and members in the following terms: “this place is like hell, and there is no relief in hell. But only our determination, courage and faith help the martyrs to endure extreme moments. My incarceration should strengthen the fire of hope for a lasting solution in Rwanda. This is part of the non-violent struggle for democracy and the Prison is one of dictators’ favourite weapons”.
Her security detail inside the prison seems more impressing and two female inmates have been relaying each other in her cell.
The Prosecution is not yet ready for the trial. The intimidation is still going on towards party members inside Rwanda and house staff. Almost every staff has been blackmailed either to support the prosecution evidence, either to face the security machinery as enemies of the state. No one was spared: private secretaries, kitchen staff, gardeners and watchmen. Some party members have been arrested in different parts of the country.
The key witness, the so called “Major” Vital UWUMUREMYI, paraded by the prosecution has never been a member of the former Rwandan army before the genocide. It is only in exile in the DRC, when he enrolled for officer’s training course and according to our records until his repatriation in February 2009, he has never been given the rank of “Major”, either in the rebellion, either in the ruling Rwandan Defence Forces. He was promoted to this rank by some propaganda for the purpose of this politically motivated trial. We officially challenge the government to substantiate with official army records his military training in Rwanda before or after the genocide.
The reactions of the international community to the detention of our party leader are strong and powerful signals to the Rwandan people and Africans in terms of knowing whether there are genuine friends of Rwanda and in which circumstances they can rely on them. We are very grateful for the efforts carried on and by the work being done by some countries for the unconditional release of Ms. Victoire INGABIRE.

When you read through this article you get to understand the cross-checking similarities of the Afro-Americans experience and how they relate easily to the traumatic experience of Hutus since 1400CE.

All workers have a big stake in fight for immigrant rights and should reject those who are trying to use that issue to drive a wedge between people -- black, brown and white.We are a nation of immigrants. Unless they are Native American Indian, virtually every U.S. family has some roots in another country. The U.S. has the most multiracial and multinational working class in the world.
The long-term trend is immigration will continue. Some especially, on the right, think this is some kind of "threat" to the country, but our multiracial character is a wonderful strength.
Why are people coming here?
Recently migration from Mexico has been dropping because of the economic crisis here. This shows that Mexican immigration is about jobs and survival. U.S. imperialism has always had a stranglehold on the Mexican economy, but it has been made worse by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
I've been to the Arizona border with Mexico and I've seen the faces of mostly young people who are risking their lives to walk through snake infested, sweltering desert. They carry with them the hopes of their families and villagers they will make it across, get a job and send some money home. Many do not make it.
It brings to mind the plight of thousands of escaped slaves during slavery who would have to walk and run for hundreds of miles trying to not get caught by the bounty hunters, while not knowing what consequences they would have to face once they reached a "free" state.
African Americans have an immigrant past too. We were "illegal immigrants" for over 300 years. We were dragged here from our homeland.
Thousands ran away following the North Star on the Underground Railroad which was run by abolitionists, black and white. Many African slaves ran away and joined Indian tribes. When Mexico abolished slavery in 1829 many escaped south of the border to freedom. These are some of the historic links that showed solidarity between black, brown, white and red people trying to overcome the horror that was U.S. slavery.
The same kind of racism directed at the African America people for 400 years is being directed immigrants today. There needs to be unity.
The new composition of those immigrating to the U.S. has made immigration a real issue in the Black community. According to the 2008 U.S. Census, 1 in 4 African Americans today were born abroad. Of those born abroad over half come from the Caribbean and 34% were born on the continent of Africa. In 1960 it was only 1% from Africa. Africans now account for one in three foreign born Blacks. Based on the 2008 numbers 8% of all African Americans are now foreign born.
Barack Obama's father was an immigrant.
Today over 25% of all children under the age of 6 are being raised by at least one foreign-born parent. The children of immigrants have as much chance for greatness as native-born children, if given a chance.
Fair and humane treatment of immigrants would reject mass deportations and criminalization. It would include amnesty are issues that should be supported by decent minded people everywhere.
I have been especially disturbed by the efforts by right wingers like Lou Dobbs (who was finally forced out from CNN) to convince African Americans that immigrants are the reason for high unemployed among U.S. born workers.
Those who are trying to promote anti-immigrant ideas in our community are promoting racism and violence and ought to be completely rejected.
Disunity at this time of crisis is the path towards more hardships and new defeats for the working class as a whole.
To call immigrants "law breakers" as many right-wing commentators do is to not tell the real story.
The fact is our immigration laws are oppressive and unjust. They are selectively enforced depending on the country of origin the race and class of the immigrant worker. The experience of an immigrant trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico versus Canada can be like night and day.
And by the way, slavery was legal for 300 years but that didn't make it right.
The key to any humane resolution to the problem is some form of amnesty which will unite families, end the criminalization of millions of working people and allow those without documents to find their way to citizenship and legal employment.
The other part of the solution is jobs. We urgently need a green revolution which would create millions of good jobs. A national jobs bill needs to be passed that will create tens of millions of good jobs through federal spending.
In addition, it's time to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and shift those trillions of dollars away from war to creating jobs by rebuilding our country.
The U.S. economy will benefit far more from such a huge increase in the buying power of working families through massive job creation then from more tax breaks for the wealthy, not to mention what it will do to our national spirit.

Friday, November 19, 2010

From Radio Netherland WorldThe defence team of Victoire Ingabire, leader of the opposition party United Democratic Forces (UDF), is getting ready for trial. Ingabire is accused of collaborating with a terrorist organisation, dividing the people of Rwanda and denying the 1994 genocide. But who is actually defending her? Three lawyers are struggling to find their way in this "sensitive and very unclear" case.Robert Alun Jones
A top British laywer, Jones represented the Spanish government in the famous case against former Chilean dictator Genaral Augusto Pinochet (1998-2000).
The barrister has past experience with Rwanda. He successfully defended Vincent Brown, a Rwandan doctor arrested in London on suspicion of murder during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Kigali demanded his extradition. Jones, who had been living for years in the UK, was acquitted in 2009.
Jones will defend Ingabire, not in his own country but in Rwanda.Iain Edwards
Edwards, a British lawyer with ten years of experience behind him, is specialised in criminal law and human rights. He is fluent in French and also has a particular interest in immigration issues with clients facing the risk of deportation.
Edwards has also been working for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. His clients are charged with genocide and crimes against humanity arising from the Rwandan 1994 genocide.
“We hope that it will be a fair trial. But it’s far too early to say”, Edwards told RNW on the phone with regards to Ingabire’s case. He sees it as being sensitive and very unclear.
“We have no idea what the schedule looks like, but it seems that the prosecutor has a limited amount of evidence. Ingabire hasn’t even been charged yet. We think that the prosecutor is still trying to find evidence.”
Edwards met with Ingabire in Kigali this year, when he dealt with the imprisonment of her American lawyer Peter Erlinder.Gatera Gashabana
By proximity, this Rwandan lawyer is probably the most engaged one in Ingabire’s case. He visits her regularly in her cell.
According to Gatera, Ingabire’s imprisonment is "unlawful". Until now, he feels that the judge has not taken his arguments into consideration, he told RNW.
"The accusation is based on a testimony of a person who declared that he and Ingabire had the intention to create a military organisation. This declaration cannot be taken into consideration because this person is also accused. According to our law, this testimony doesn’t have any value”, Gatera argues.
"Furthermore, there are e-mails in which Victoire has written about the military organisation to fight the power in place in our country. But according to our laws, e-mails don’t have any value in court."

Thursday, November 18, 2010

A persistent unanswered question has been on the lips of everyone who has been observing conflicts and politics in different parts of the world. What are the criteria the Department for International Development (DfID) follows to distribute British taxpayers’ money as aid to different countries? Unless you assume there are hidden pointers that ordinary Westerners aren’t allow to know, no one would understand for example how Rwanda led by Paul Kagame could be one of the favourite beneficiaries, knowing that its record of human rights abuse is unprecedented.

Let’s forget the UN/ Gersony report of October 1994 or the Garreton report of 1997 which, though covered up and therefore not followed up, documented killing of thousands of Hutu population the first in Rwanda and the second in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But the UN report published on October 1st, thanks to its leaking by the newspaper Le Monde a month earlier, accuses openly the Rwandan Patriotic Army and its AFDL partner in war of having committed acts of genocide in DRC. Since October 14th, 2010, the President of Rwanda has imprisoned Ms Victoire Ingabire, leader of FDU-Inkingi, an important opposition personality on Rwandan ring-fenced political space, and this occurring without any clear condemnation from the international community.On the Mo Ibrahim Index Rwanda scores 47.2% and stands at no. 31 out 53 African countries. For a reminder, this index measures annually four parameters across the continent. These are safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity, human development. Overall the country has moved backwards by 2.2% from previous period of 2007/8. There has as well been a significant decrease in safety and rule of law by 8.4%, while in terms of sustainable economic opportunity, a 2.2% increase had been registered.In its press freedom index, Reporters without Borders indicates that Rwanda was ranked 157th out of 175 countries in the 2009 listing. The country was featured among the four lowest African scorers of the record. Eritrea, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea were the only countries below Rwanda in the ranking. Transparency International has on the other hand referred to Rwanda as the least corrupt country in East Africa. But it is arguable because, according to the country’s critic, there may not be official corruption following the fact that Rwanda is a police state. As Transparency itself points it out, ‘it was unable to produce a comparison of how Rwanda’s institutions fared because reports of bribery were so low – and no Rwandan organization was included in the regional comparison.’ For example, the South African newspaper Sunday Times uncovered in February 2010 the case of two luxury jets worth around one hundred millions of US $ belonging to the Rwandan president, and this may only be the tip of the iceberg.At a time of drastic measures that the British government is currently taking to deal with its massive deficit, very few departments have seen their budgets increased. International development is among the handful winners. Apparently the department budget is ring-fenced, but even there fundamental changes may be planned in its spending. Anne McElvoy, writing in The Evening Standard, seems to be sceptical about supposed changes. ‘Ring-fencing of spending of international development, (which) means that less rigour will be applied there than in other areas – and in a department whose inefficiencies are legendary in Whitehall,’ she argues.It has been announced that aid budget will mainly focus on ‘fragile states’ such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen and other countries deemed important for Britain’s national security, with less for prosperous nations such as India and China. The aim is seemingly to tackle underlying problems, such as poor education, governance and healthcare, which are exploited by militants seeking recruits for terrorism acts. However, such prioritisation supposes that hopefully, there won’t be any recruit from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi or Democratic Republic of Congo who will come to London to blow himself with other members of the public, since some of these countries could be as well called fragile states, when considered the total absence of political space for dissent voices.Tim Whewell’s film, ‘What is the true price of Rwanda’s recovery’, which was shown on Newsnight in March 2010 on BBC Two, explained that whoever between Labour and Tories British political parties would’ve won the general elections, support to Paul Kagame’s regime would’ve remained. As for Britain’s role in supporting Rwanda, Mr. Cannon, British ambassador in Kigali, says that: ‘Although there are aspects of the country’s human rights that are not perfect – certainly we wouldn’t be here or doing what we’re doing if we didn’t think there was a commitment on the part of the government to the values we share.’ He points in particular to a shared commitment to pro-poor policies – thanks in part to British aid, the proportion of poor Rwandans fell from 70% of the population to 57% between 1994 and 2006. He however forgets to mention that in 1990, before the guerrilla war led by Paul Kagame, that proportion of poor Rwandans was according PNUD only 47%.The particular treatment of Rwanda responds to a number of specific interests the country represents or defends for Britain in the Great Lakes region. French was replaced by English as national language, without any public consultation, despite the consequences of such decision on thousands of Rwandan public servants who had been educated in French for several generations. The Rwandan president was rewarded admission of his country to the Commonwealth though Rwanda and countries of the ex-British empire didn’t share any common heritage. Such admission maybe could’ve been tolerable at least if Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and other human rights organisations hadn’t vigorously denounced the level of human rights abuse by the Rwandan president.But this was without considering current cuts that the coalition government Lib. Dem/ Conservatives would impose to the British nation or the exposure to compelling evidence of Paul Kagame’s crimes to the public which had turned a blind eye on his excesses because of his country’s recent history. Despite an increasing and unprecedented record of abuses of human rights particularly against Rwandan politicians from the opposition, Kigali doesn’t look worried to loose the support of Britain, this even after the publication of the UN report on crimes committed in DRC. The fact of pointing an accusatory finger to Paul Kagame seems to have rather radicalised his attitude towards his opponent politicians: Victoire Ingabire from the FDU-Inkingi and Me Bernard Ntaganda from Socialist Party Imberakuri are paying with tortures and imprisonment for the frustration of the Rwandan president. But this may not apply for Andre Rwisereka, vice-president of the Green Democratic Party of Rwanda who was apparently assassinated by the regime’s handlers in July 2010 for political reasons. On this particular case, Kigali has refused an independent inquiry into the death of this politician, but instead imprisoned probably innocent people to calm pressing calls for justice.At the Conservative conference held a few months ago, the issue of human rights in Rwanda was apparently raised but couldn’t find any ear ready to listen to the point of concern. Those who tried to highlight the question found it played down because Rwanda is seen as a flagship for Britain in the matters of aid to development. But what the whole picture of support to Paul Kagame doesn’t tell is how that provided financial support enables Rwandan authorities to get a hand on Eastern Congo mineral resources with the complicity of private companies based in Western countries, or to oppress and legally discriminate among its citizens, and spread internationally its propaganda of being a success story in the midst of an African continent marred with conflicts and all sorts of negative clichés. Another hidden reality was uncovered by UN experts on the consequence of aid in the Great Lakes region. They found that, for example in the case of Uganda, ‘(it) gave the Government room to spend more on security matters while other sectors, such as education, health and governance, are being taken care of by the bilateral and multilateral aid,’ asserts the UN report of 2001 on ‘Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’In the light of current cuts, would British taxpayers continue to see their money which would have helped them or else to deal with ongoing tough times be spent as aid to development of dictatorial and oppressive governments such Rwanda, without asking pertinent questions to their leaders? I don’t think they would knowingly. As international aid budget is scheduled to increase during the current parliament, British public should be more attuned to asking from their ministers a minimum of criteria of human rights and press freedom, and democratic credentials, beneficiaries of British aid should comply with rigorously.

Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125

The official Oct. 1 release of the U.N. Report on Human Rights Abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003, documenting the Rwandan and Ugandan armies’ massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, should be a defining moment for President Barack Obama. How will the USA’s first African American president respond to the detailed and widely publicized U.N. documentation of genocide in the heart of Africa, committed by the USA’s longstanding military proxies, the armies of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni?
Few Americans realize that the Rwandan and Ugandan armies are armed and trained by the U.S. or that the U.S. military uses both countries as staging grounds, but they may learn about it now.
Few realize either that the sole piece of legislation that President Obama shepherded into law on his own, as a Senator, was S.B. 2125, the Obama Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006, in which, in Section 101(3), he quoted USAID:
“Given its size, population, and resources, the Congo is an important player in Africa and of long-term interest to the United States.”
Indeed. In 1982, the Congressional Budget Office’s “Cobalt: Policy Options for a Strategic Mineral” noted that cobalt alloys are critical to the aerospace and weapons industries, that the U.S. has no cobalt worth mining, that 64 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves are in the Katanga Copper Belt running from southeastern Congo into northern Zambia and that control of the region is therefore critical to the U.S. ability to manufacture for war.
Foreign powers and corporations’ determination to control Congo’s cobalt and the rest of its dense mineral resources has made the Congo conflict the most lethal since World War II.
Section 101(5) and (6) of Obama’s 2006 Congo legislation reads:
“(5) The most recent war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which erupted in 1998, spawned some of the world’s worst human rights atrocities and drew in six neighboring countries.
“(6) Despite the conclusion of a peace agreement and subsequent withdrawal of foreign forces in 2003, both the real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi continue to serve as a major source of regional instability and an apparent pretext for continued interference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by its neighbors [Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi].”
What Obama identified as the “real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi” was, most of all, the real and perceived presence of “Hutu militias.” They were indeed the “pretext” for the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Army’s massacres of Hutu civilians, Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus, with the help of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force – massacres now documented in the U.N. report leaked to Le Monde on Aug. 26, then officially released Oct. 1.
Since Obama described the militias as “apparent pretext for continued interference” in 2006, we can assume that he understood them as such on his Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009, when Rwandan troops again moved into Congo. On that day, world headlines, alongside those he himself was making, included “Rwandan Troops enter D.R. Congo to hunt Hutu militias” (Telegraph), “Rwandan troops enter Congo to hunt Hutu rebels” (BBC) and “Rwandan troops enter Kivu to hunt Hutu rebels” (Radio France International).
On the same day, the Christian Science Monitor, in “Rwandan Troops enter Democratic Republic of the Congo,” reproduced the pretext that Obama had identified in S.B. 2125:
“Rwandan troops entered the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday to tackle a Rwandan Hutu militia whose leaders are accused of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide before fleeing to Congo.”
Since Obama understood the pretext in 2006, he no doubt understood it that day and no doubt understands it today, as Rwandan and Ugandan troops are rumored, once again, to be moving into Congo, despite international outcry about the U.N. report.
Hutu militias and other “rebel militias” in Congo can no longer serve as the devil, the eternal excuse or, as Obama said, the “apparent pretext for intervention in the Democratic Republic by Congo’s neighbors.” Most of all, they can no longer serve as the devil, the excuse and pretext for interventions by Paul Kagame, the general turned president and so long heroized as Rwanda’s savior, because Kagame’s own army’s massacres of Rwandan and Congolese Hutu civilians has now been documented in the U.N. report.
The leak and now the official release have finally magnified President, then-Senator, Obama’s obscure, still little known revision of the East-Central African story in his 2006 legislation, S.B. 2125, which then became Public Law 109-456.
Obama’s ‘Rwanda moment’?
John Prendergast and David Eggers, the ENOUGH Project’s tireless advocates for U.S. intervention in Sudan, suggested, in a New York Times op-ed that Obama’s “Rwanda moment,” like Bill Clinton’s in 1994, is now in Sudan, where, they say, Obama has a chance to do what Bill Clinton reputedly failed to do in Rwanda, intervene to stop genocide.
But Obama’s Rwanda, and Congo, moment is in Rwanda and Congo now, as the world reviews the U.N. report and Rwandan troops once again advance into Congo.
He doesn’t need to intervene but to stop intervening, by withdrawing the military support, weapons, training, logistics and intelligence for Kagame, support that has so long equaled intervention. If he did so, peace and human rights activists all over the world would stand behind him and the narrative revision that he quietly penned three years ago.
An Obama decision to stop supporting Kagame would go up against the last 30 years of Pentagon intervention in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, but the U.N. Report turns his 2006 narrative revision into an outright reversal – with the weight of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and growing international opinion behind it.
And Obama is the commander-in-chief, with absolute executive authority over the U.S. armed forces. Yes, he can, should he choose to.
This article was previously published in Global Research.
Written by Ann Garrison

Friday, November 12, 2010

Opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza stood before a judge in Kigali, Rwanda, on April 22, after the Kagame government arrested and charged her with "associating with terrorists" and "genocide ideology," a crime unique to Rwanda which includes "divisionism" and "revisionism," meaning politics, and/or attempting to revise the received history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

Two weeks earlier, on April 7th, speaking at a commemorative ceremony, on the 16th anniversary of the civilian massacres known as the Rwanda Genocide, Rwandan President Paul Kagame referred to Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza as "some lady," an example of "some people" who "just come from nowhere, useless people." He refused to speak her proper name, though she is widely acknowledged as the leading opposition candidate in Rwanda's 2010 presidential election, and many of her supporters now call her Africa's female Mandela:

"Some people want to encourage political hooliganism. Some people just come from nowhere, useless people. I see everytime in the pictures, some lady who had her deputy, a genocide criminal, her deputy, talking about "y'know, there's Rwanda Genocide, but there is another. . . so that is politics. And the world says, 'The opposition leader!' But I know those who say it and who support that. They know it is wrong, but it is an expression of contempt these people have for Rwandans and for Africans, that they think Africans deserve to be led by these hooligans, and to that we say NO, a big NO. And if anybody wants a fight there, we'll give them a fight." --Paul Kagame, http://www.youtube.com/watchv=vO9Zad51kJc&feature=related

Even the New York Times, which had until then ignored this year's Rwandan presidential election, finally published three accounts of Ingabire's arrest on April 21st, and the next day the Washington Post, which had also been ignoring the story, finally published a Reuters wire reporting that Ingabire had been released on bail that morning.

Shortly after the news of her release, the International Humanitarian Law Institute of St. Paul Minnesota announced that its director, William and Mitchell Law School Professor Peter Erlinder, and Wichita Lawyer Kurt P. Kerns, will join Ingabire's Rwandan lawyer Protais Mutembe in her legal defense. Ingabire is charged with "genocide related crime," meaning crime related to the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, the central narrative justifying Rwanda's political life and relationship to the outside world, and, most of all, to its most ardent defenders and donors, the US and the UK.

Erlinder is Professor of Constitutional Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law at William Mitchell College of Law, President of ICTR-ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defense), and past President of the National Lawyers Guild, NY, NY. Most significantly, in Ingabire's case, he is the Lead Defense Counsel in the Military-1 trial at the UN's International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR), where he won a victory of enormous significance to Rwandan history---the acquittal of four former top military leaders accused of conspiring and planning to commit genocide or any other crimes in 1994.

The ICTR acquitted its highest ranking defendant, Colonel Bagosora, on December 18, 2008, after which Erlinder wrote:

". . . ALL of the top Rwandan military officers, including the supposedly infamous Colonel Bagosora, were found not guilty of conspiracy or planning to commit genocide. And Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, a senior member of the general staff was acquitted of all charges! The others were found guilty of specific acts committed by subordinates, in specific places, at specific times - not an overall conspiracy to kill civilians, much less Rwandan-Tutsi civilians."

"This raises the more profound question: If there was no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic (i.e., Tutsi) civilians, can the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda properly be called “a genocide” at all? Or, was it closer to a case of civilians being caught up in war-time violence, like the Eastern Front in WWII, rather than the planned behind-the-lines killings in Nazi death camps? The ICTR judgment found the former."

"The Court specifically found that the actions of Rwandan military leaders, both before and after the April 6, 1994, assassination of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, Rwanda's head of state at the time of his murder, were consistent with war-time conditions and the massive chaos brought about by the four-year war of invasion from Uganda by General Paul Kagame's RPF Army, which seized power in July 1994. ----Professor Peter Erlinder, "Rwanda: No Conspiracy, No Genocide Planning. . . No Genocide?," Jurist, 12.23.2008,Global Research, 01.24.2009

Erlinder says that the Court's ruling in December 2008 should have radically revised the world's understanding of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, but because there were no international press covering the ICTR by December 2008, 14 years after the slaughter that left 1 million or more Rwandans dead, and because of international political investment in the received history, it continues to be told in the Wikipedia and repeated by most news outlets whenever they revisit Rwanda or the Rwandan violence of 1994.

At the ICTR, Erlinder was able to assemble the evidence and argue the case that led to the court's conclusion that there was no conspiracy, and no planning to commit genocide, and therefore no genocide crime like that covered by the international law created by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide after the Nazi death camps of World War II.

Though the international press had indeed turned away from Rwanda and the ICTR by December 2008, its attention is now on Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza and her trial, less than four months before Rwanda's August 9th polls. Though her party, the United Democratic Forces, (UDF)-Inkingi, remains unable to register, and she herself has now been indicted, she continues to attempt to contest the election.

"Ingabire was arrested on trumped-up, political thought crimes, including association with a terrorist group, propagating the genocide ideology, genocide denial, revisionism, and divisionism, all arising from the "crime" of publicly objecting to the Kagame military dictatorship, and Kagame's version of the Rwandan Civil War," Erlinder said.

If he and Rwandan lawyer Protais Mutembe can make the same case that he was able to make at the ICTR, then the international press may have to decide whether or not to report that, in Rwanda, in 1994, there was "no conspiracy, no planning . . . no genocide?" This, of course, depends on how the world defines "genocide," but, the genocide ideology statutes that Victoire is charged with violating---for having said that Hutus, as well as Tutsis, were victims of crimes against humanity---would become impossible to defend.

If international reporters finally do begin to cover the real story of the Rwanda Genocide and the Congo War, then Paul Kagame's regime, which Hillary Clinton has called "the beacon of hope" for Africa, will cease to seem so to the outside world.

No one, least of all Professor Erlinder, denies that the bloodshed in Rwanda, in 1994 was horrific, but he says, as he did when I spoke to him for KPFA Radio, that the received history of Rwanda in 1994, and the ensuing war in neighboring D.R. Congo are history written by the victors, and by their backers, the U.S. and the UK:

And, that they are guilty of racketeering to acquire and maintain an interest in the resources of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, at a cost of 6 million more lives.

D.R. Congo is one of the most resource rich nations on earth and its mineral wealth, most of all its cobalt reserves, are essential to modern military industries' ability to manufacture for war. The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of cobalt.

Violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act,

Torture, and,

Conspiracy to Torture

Media outlets around the world reported that Kagame had escaped process service in the U.S. on April 30th, but Peter Erlinder told KPFA Radio News, that Kagame had violated the law by doing so, and, that, assuming the law is upheld, he will be served and required to answer.

As Erlinder, and lawyers Kurt P. Kerns and John P. Zelbst, prepare to advance the case against Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Erlinder and Kerns also prepare to defend Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, against Kagame's Rwandan government.

"I consider it my job to say things that my clients are not free to say," says Erlinder, "and I'm sure that Mrs. Ingabire realized that when she asked me to defend her."